17 Apr 2022 - 31 Mar 2023

Ludmila Pogodina ( Belarus )

Being raised in a family with deeply rooted Soviet dogmas, militaristic aesthetics, and gender stereotypes, Pogodina has chosen the mix of writing, conversations and visual documentation as her tools for escaping such confines. Her project researched how the idea of personal vulnerability that can be transformed into a form of personal growth that leads to our growth as a society. Through hundreds of interviews with fellow creators and doers (philosophers, performers, activists, musicians, filmmakers, etc.), photography and collages she focused on the feeling of safe space and freedom of expression in the context of censorship and oppression.

The experience of living in permanent stress and fear due to the political repressions that peaked in 2020, initiated her research on “timelessness” and the coping mechanisms that are ever present in conflict areas. The main focus of her research, however, was to dig deep into the layers of family structures, social “packages” and basic instincts, to find out what a person was when they were not constantly bombarded from the outside. The output was a book, a multimedia project, and a series of multimedia exhibitions.